Washington Post: Ashura Festival

Here's a graphic video clip of the Shi'a ritual of Ashura from the Washington Post's Jack Fairweather, who is traveling around Central Asia and the Middle East in search of answers to the question of what does Islam mean to young people. The clip is rather amateurish and I don't know if it was because videotaping the ritualistic flagellation is prohibited.Nevertheless, it's an unusual glimpse in a ritual which has its counterpart in Catholicism. It takes place amongst the Shia communities of the Middle East and beyond, and Ashura is on the 10th day of Muharram in the Islamic calendar. It is commemorated by the Shi‘a as a day of mourning for the martyrdom of Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad at the Battle of Karbala on 10 Muharram in the year 61 After Hijra ( corresponding...

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Posted in: Festivals

Deutsche Börse Photography Prize

Image Copyright © Fazal Sheikh -All Rights ReservedThe Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, established in 1996, gives £30,000 (nearly $60,000) to the winner. This year's shortlist was announced and it highlights the work of Britain's John Davies, the Danish photographer Jacob Holdt, Esko Mannikko from Finland and the American Fazal Sheikh, who were chosen from 90 nominees put forward by experts worldwide. Drusilla Beyfus in the Daily Telegraph in London, writes this about Fazal Sheikh and of his most recent work "Ladli": "Described as an artist-activist, he (Fazal) is known for creating sustained studies of communities around the world. Realistic black-and-white portraits are Sheikh's fire power and his primary evidence. The frame is filled with...

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Posted in: Contests,Events,Photojournalism

Lorena Guillén Vaschetti: Dance

Image Copyright © Lorena Guillén Vaschetti -All Rights ReservedLorena Guillén Vaschetti is a photographer from Argentina, who studied anthropology and architecture. She studied photography at New York's ICP, NYU and at the New School.I feature her work on ritual dances of the Australian aborigines: a gallery she titles Painted Rituals. Her saturated photographs of these dances only show the dancers' feet and bodies, and ably manages to convey the sense of movement. An interesting photographer with a novel way to depicting dance photography.Through Lensculture.com, here is Lorena Guillén Vaschetti's Painted Rituals Her website is h...

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Posted in: Photographers: Travel

Bhutan: Photo Expedition News

Image © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedI'm pleased to announce that the Bhutan: Land of the Druk Yul Photo Expedition (October 3-October 17, 2008) is sold out (due to unprecedented demand, I had to increase the participations to 11 photographers), and there's another number of photographers on its wait-list. Some have asked me to organize and lead another photo expedition to Bhutan in February-March 2009, and this is being consider...

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Posted in: Bhutan,Photo Tours

Kash & Shabana

Shabana with Kash Gabriele Torsello In a few days, an Italian plane carrying an Afghan four-year-old girl and her father will leave the Kabul for Rome. The young girl is Shabana, who suffers from a mysterious tumor, that if left unchecked causes severe nerve damage and, ultimately, death. Now, she will undergo her second operation, in Rome, which will bring together Western and Afghan surgeons.Shabana's story so far, including her first operation in Kabul, results from the work of Italian photojournalist Kash Gabriele Torsello, who was kidnapped and detained in Afghanistan. Since his release, Kash has been working to develop a program of medical and cultural exchanges between Afghanistan and Europe. Shabana’s operation in Rome is due to the...

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Posted in: Events,Photographers: Photojournalists

Venice Carnival

The Venice Carnival 2008 is scheduled for January 25 to February 5. The Venice Carnival is the most internationally known festival celebrated in Venice, Italy, as well as being one of the oldest. The carnival, with its tradition of mask-wearing, has existed in some form or another since the 13th century. The masks themselves - along with the traditional bauto (hood and cape), tabarro (cloak) and tricorn hat - were favored because they conferred complete anonymity on their wearers.The above photograph is courtesy of _Olia i klod , a Franco-Russian couple & Flickr membe...

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Posted in: Festivals

TTP Recap of the Week

For your convenience, here's the past week's (January 21-January 27, 2008) most read posts on TTP: Marcus Bleasdale: Rape of a NationAnother Mac Air ReviewCanon EOS 4...

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Posted in: TTP Recap

Another Mac Air Review

Ryan Block's review of the Mac Air (or just Air) on Engadget is the most thorough I've seen so far. Before this review was available, I instinctively thought that the Air would be a difficult product to decide on...and this write-up seems to confirm this. The reviewer describes the Air as being a tough call, being hard to justify its price with all its compromises, but a technical wonder nevertheless. It's doubtful if the Air will be a primary machine for users, as it's not going to replace users' main workhorse. I haven't seen the Air at the Apple store yet, but I sense that it's an 'into the future' machine... Apple is anticipating what mobile wireless computing will be in a few years, and the Air is it.I'd love nothing better that an ultra-light...

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Posted in: Hard Gear

Diversity of Devotion: Brooklyn Library

Image Copyright © Marcia Halperin-All Rights ReservedThe Brooklyn Public Library is exhibiting the Diversity of Devotion Photo-Documentary Project from January 15-April 19, 2008. The exhibit is in the Grand Lobby of the Library. The project was developed and curated by Jenny Jozwiak, an award-winning travel and culture photographer whose work has taken her to 37 countries.I was pleased to be one of the jurors in the Diversity of Devotion project, and glad to see its impressive (and deserved) success . Much of it is due to Jenny's tireless efforts.Brooklyn Public Library's Diversity of Devot...

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Posted in: Events

Robert Capa's Lost Negatives

Image © Tony Cenicola/NY Times-All Rights ReservedThe New York Times features an interesting article about the discovery of “the Mexican suitcase”, which held thousands of negatives that the legendary war photographer, Robert Capa took during the Spanish Civil War before he fled Europe for America in 1939.The suitcase — actually three flimsy cardboard valises — contained thousands (around 3500) of negatives of pictures that Robert Capa, one of the pioneers of modern war photography, took during the Spanish Civil War before he fled Europe for America in 1939, leaving behind the contents of his Paris darkroom.According to Brian Wallis, chief curator at the International Center of Photography, the Capa negatives appear to be remarkably good after...

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Posted in: Photojournalism

PDN Interview: Steve McCurry

Image © Steve McCurry-All Rights ReservedPDN just published an interview with Steve McCurry. I can't say there's anything new or exciting to be learnt from McCurry's answers, but I found this one to be right on the money:"When asked what those two years of travel taught him, McCurry says simply, “Just because someone’s wearing a turban, doesn’t mean it’s an interesting photo.”PDN's Steve McCurry: An Interview with PDN...

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Posted in: Interviews,Photographers: Travel

Multimedia: The Whale Hunt

"In May 2007, I spent nine days living with a family of Inupiat Eskimos in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost settlement in the United States. The first several days were spent in the village of Barrow, exploring ramshackle structures, buying gear, and otherwise helping the whaling crew to prepare for the hunt. We then traveled by snowmobile out onto the frozen Arctic Ocean, where we camped three miles from shore on thick pack ice, pitching our tents about ten feet from the open water. Boats were readied, harpoons prepared, whaling guns loaded, white tunics donned, a snow fence constructed, and then we sat silently in the -22 °F air, in constant daylight, waiting for whales to appear."This is how Jonathan Harris starts his statement on The Whale Hunt, a multimedia storytelling experiment. He...

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Posted in: Multimedia

The Gaza Ghetto

Image Copyright © Ibraheem Abu Mustafa-Reuters-All Rights ReservedI think this is one of the more poignant photographs of the Palestinan exodus from Gaza over the past few days. Egyptian officials estimate that about 120,000 Palestinian have crossed into Egypt since the border was toppled by Hamas militants on Wednesday. Palestinians have been returning with consumer goods that have been lacking since Israel closed its own border with Gaza last week — everything from cigarettes to televisions, generators, washing machines, milk, cheese, sheep, goats, cows, camels, diesel fuel and gasoline. Maybe the Nobel Peace prize winner, Elie Wiesel will speak out; after all, he's the one who said "..."...to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest...

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Posted in: Middle East

Canon EOS 450D / Digital Rebel XSi

Canon has also announced a new compact digital SLR, a 12.2 megapixel EOS 450D (Digital Rebel XSi). It boasts various improvements and enhancements over the EOS 400D. The estimated list price is $800, and its main features are: * 12.2 Megapixel CMOS sensor * Canon’s EOS Integrated Cleaning System * 3.5 frames per second * 3.0” LCD with Live View shooting * 9-point wide-area AF system with f/2.8 cross-type center point * Picture Style image processing parameters * DIGIC III image processor * Digital Photo Professional RAW processing software * Fully compatible with all Canon EF and EF-S lenses The interesting improvements from my standpoint are the spot metering (4%) and the Live View. The fps rate is 3.5 and the FoV...

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Posted in: Hard Gear

New Canon EF200mm

Canon has issued a press release introducing its Canon EF200mm f/2L IS USM at PMA 20. The lens is claimed to be significantly lighter (2520g/5.5 lbs. vs. 3000g/6.6 lbs.) than its predecessor, the renowned EF200mm f/1.8L USM lens, while adding OIS and a weather-resistant design. It has a close-focus setting of 1.9 m/6.2 feet and a circular aperture system that enhances its background blur rendition at wide apertures.The new Canon EF200mm f/2L IS USM is scheduled to be available in April at an estimated retail price of $6,000...and if you think that's not much, Canon has also introduced the new Canon EF800mm f/5.6L IS USM scheduled to be available in May for an estimated retail price of $12,0...

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Posted in: Lenses

TTP: One Year Later...

As I wrote a few weeks ago, I had no expectations that The Travel Photographer blog would become so popular and read in such large numbers. I'm flummoxed but immensely gratified by the response. It's been educational for me, as well as great fun...so I look forward to another year of blogging about interesting photography projects from existing and fresh talent, about innovative ideas and news affecting documentary-travel photography, about new hardware & software...and naturally, to post my occasional ran...

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Posted in: Events

Marcus Bleasdale: Rape of A Nation

Image © Marcus Bleasdale-All Rights ReservedMediaStorm brings us Rape of A Nation, a gut-wrenching multimedia feature of Marcus Bleasdale's work in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an estimated 5.4 million people have died since 1998, the largest death toll since the Second World War, according to the International Rescue Committee (IRC). It also reports that as many as 45,000 people die each month in the Congo. most of which are caused by malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia, malnutrition, and neonatal problems; results of a devastated economy.The feature is by Marcus Bleasdale, a photojournalist (now with VII) who spent eight years covering the brutal conflict within the borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Widely published in the...

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Posted in: Africa,Multimedia,Photographers: Photojournalists,Photojournalism

Shane Bauer: Darfur

Image © Shane Bauer-All Rights ReservedShane Bauer is a freelance journalist who aims to expose social, political, and economic issues around the world. Fluent in Arabic, his work has largely focused on the Middle East and North Africa, where he has spent much of the past five years. He has also worked in Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Cuba, and throughout the former Yugoslavia. His writing and photography has been published in the US, UK, Middle East, and Canada including publications such as the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, Aljazeera.net, and E: The Environmental Magazine. His website features a very well done multimedia slideshow titled Darfur Rising. I especially commend his ability with ambient sound and narrative. Darfur Ris...

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Posted in: Darfur,Multimedia,Photographers: Photojournalists,Photojournalism

NY Times Magazine: A Cutting Tradition

Image © Stephanie Sinclair/NY Times-All Rights ReservedThis Sunday's New York Times Magazine brought us an 8 pictures photo-essay by Stephanie Sinclair titled "A Cutting Tradition" which accompanies an article authored by Sara Corbett on female circumcision in Indonesia.I was initially glad to finally see a serious topic addressed by the Magazine in a photo-essay format. After all, it's about the cruel, abhorrent and abominable tradition practiced in some Islamic countries on the pretext that it's condoned by Islam. However, the tradition of female circumcision does not originate from Islam nor from the Qur'an, nor is it condoned by either. For more on this, here's a link from the BBC. The tradition has been banned by many Islamic and African...

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Posted in: Indonesia,Photographers: Photojournalists,Photojournalism

TTP Recap of the Week

For your convenience, here's the past week's (January 14-January 20, 2008) most read posts on TTP: Fazal Sheikh's The Victor Weeps1 on 1: Candace FeitShahidul Alam's Brahmapu...

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Fazal Sheikh: The Victor Weeps

I won't describe Fazal Sheikh as documentary photographer because he's much more than that. His subjects include Indian widows, Sudanese and Somali refugees at camps in Kenya, survivors of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the indigenous people of Pantanal, Brazil, and immigrants from Mexico. He makes formal portraits of his subjects; he interviews them and tells their life stories...he lives among them and lives like them. His are portraits of human dignity. Nothing else I can write will adequately describe his craft and his humanity. In a previous post on Fazal, I wrote: "Here's the work of a photographer who, by any definition, is the pride of this profession; Fazal Sheikh not only makes pictures, he presents us an unblinking, but immensely...

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Posted in: Afghanistan,Pakistan,Photographers,Photographers: Photojournalists

The New York Times : Peshawar

Image © The New York Times-All Rights ReservedThe New York Times brings us a slideshow feature on Peshawar, the frontier town in Pakistan, legendary for its gun markets and home to a community of gunsmiths proud of their ability to make exact copies of weaponry. Peshawar literally means 'High Fort' in Persian, and is known as Pekhawar in Pashto. It's a major Pashtun city. Interestingly, the photographs are not credited to a photographer, but the newspaper has confirmed that the photographer's name was withheld for safety reasons. The accompanying article describes how the Taliban and its cohorts are now concentrating efforts to take the city and extend their militant influence in the area, and have selected the Pakistani police and its army...

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Posted in: Pakistan,Photojournalism

1 on 1: Candace Feit

The Travel Photographer blog will occasionally post interviews with both travel and editorial working photographers. This interview is with Candace Feit, a full-time freelance working photographer currently based in Dakar, Senegal and working throughout Africa. Candace worked for numerous publications—including the New York Times, Time magazine, Le Monde, and the Christian Science Monitor, among others.1) TTP: When did you decide to become a photographer? Who or what influenced your decision?CF: I had always been interested in photography, but in a pretty general way. I had a job working in marketing for LEGO in NY. After a few years they decided to close the office and move people to the United Kingdom. I realized I did not want to keep...

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Posted in: Photo Interviews

What The Duck

What The D...

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Canon Digital Photo Professional

Canon is offering a new tutorial to teach us how to use its latest version of Digital Photo Professional (DPP) with which to edit and process RAW files. Elizabeth Pratt shows Canon users how to use Canon's RAW workflow solutions.I've tried DPP a couple of times, and while it needs getting used to (as everything else), I found it to be well equipped to do the job. It's a tad on the clunky side but it's free for EOS Canon users!Thanks for Imaging Insider for the heads up to this tutorial: Digital Photo Professio...

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Posted in: Soft Gear

NY Times: Panama

Image © Tara Todras-Whitehall/NY Times-All Rights ReservedThe New York Times featured a short slideshow of photographs of the Kuna Indians. It appears that the San Blas islands have remained little-known by tourists for many years, but that it may not remain that way for long.New York Times' The Kuna Indians of the San Blas Islands on Panama’s Caribbean coast still believe that each person has a good and a bad spirit, and that after death the good spirit needs help to get to heaven. They number about 35,000 and the majority live in the San Blas Islands, and on the mainland in the Madungandi reservation, while a small percentage live in the capital city, Panama. The Kuna women wear wrap around skirts and hand-made blouses known as "molas",...

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Posted in: Central America

Shahidul Alam: Brahmaputra

Layout © Zone Zero-All Rights ReservedHere's one of my favorites multimedia presentations by Shahidul Alam, one of the most prominent photographers and educator in South Asia. He became the president of the Bangladesh Photographic Society, and founded the Drik Picture Library and "Pathshala" - South Asian Institute of Photography. He is also a director of Chobi Mela, the festival of photography in Asia, and has been awarded the Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 2001, for his contribution to photography. He is on the advisory board for the Eugene Smith Memorial Fund and the National Geographic Society. Brahmaputra may seem outdated now, but it's still a marvelous multimedia project featuring a journey from Mt Kailash...

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Posted in: Asia,Bangladesh,India,Multimedia,Tibet

MacBook Air

As rumored, Apple launched an ultra-thin notebook called the MacBook Air. The 3 lbs Air has a wedge-like shape that tapers down to 0.16" thick at the front base. Its 13.3-inch screen is LED backlit, and a backlit keyboard. It multi-touch trackpad which, like the iPhone, allows the user to rotate photographs, pinch and widen the windows, etc.Its technical specifications are 1.6 or 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, and 80GB hard drive. No optical drive and just one USB port. The price is $1799 and shipments start in 2 weeks.I can exhale now.Update: The battery can only be replaced by Apple...this is a huge drawba...

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Posted in: Hard Gear

Adobe Elements 6 Podcast

Adobe Creative Suite's website provides us with Terry White's videowalk-through of the newly announced Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for Macintosh. It's a thorough introductory tutorial which is useful if you contemplate buying or upgrading the product.As mentioned in my earlier post, Adobe announced that Adobe Elements 6 is available for pre-order for an estimated street price of US$89.99. The software will later be available at retailers. The actual availability is expected to be in March 2008.The reason for the "pre-order" announcement is easy to figure out: Adobe had originally announced that the software (for the Mac) would be available in early January, so -by pre-announcing it in this fashion- it doesn't have to admit to delays. I never...

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Posted in: Soft Gear

Felice Willat: Burma

Image Copyright © Felice Willat-All Rights ReservedHaving co-founded Day Runner Inc, Felice Willat is now founder and president of Tools With Heart, a company that develops products to enhance personal discovery and well being. A successful entrepreneur, and with a strong background in network television production, Felice is also an accomplished photographer, and recently returned from Burma.Felice's lovely photographs of Burma and its resilient people can be seen on her new website...she's generous with her work, and her gallery features over 90 photographs. I found her photographs of the fishermen of Inle Lake to be especially striking for their color, composition and luminosity...and although her remaining photographs are equally beautiful,...

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Posted in: Burma,Photographers: Travel

TTP Recap of the Week

For your convenience, here's the past week's (January 6-January 13, 2008) most read posts on TTP:Ganga Sagar MelaApple New Sub Notebook?1on 1: Gavin Go...

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Posted in: TTP Recap

Ganga Sagar Mela

Image Copyright © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights ReservedAlthough the above photograph is of the Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, another similar Hindu religious festival is underway. The period from January 12-15, 2008 is the auspicious date for the annual gathering of Hindu pilgrims during Makar Sankranti at Sagar Island, south of Kolkata.Pilgrims arrive in their thousands from across India in the first week of January to bathe in the waters of the Ganges before it merges in the Bay of Bengal. The pilgrims offer prayers to Lord Surya, and subsequent to immersing themselves in the cold waters of the river, they ritualistically offer water to Lord Surya; a ritual which washes off their sins. It is expected that the number of pilgrims will reach at...

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Posted in: Festivals,India

Sunday Rant VI

This Sunday's rant is all about photography...so the purists can rejoice this week. On a professional photography forum, I've recently seen venomous replies in response to a post from an editor of a Northern European magazine requesting photographers of South Asian images to contact him. The rather inept editor added the incendiary statement that his magazine had a limited budget, and I'm paraphrasing here...couldn't pay market rates for the photographs.Hell broke loose, and photographers crucified the hapless editor for trying to exploit them...for trying to get their photographs for next to nothing while being handsomely paid by the advertisers of the magazine...and worse.So here's the core of my rant: firstly, this sort of knee-jerk behavior...

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Posted in: Rants

FotoFlot

FotoFlot (probably pronounced "photofloat") is an innovative way to display one's photographs without glass, thereby eliminating reflections, and without frames. The sizes of FotoFlot displays range from 7.5"x10" to 15"x30", and these hang from the walls with a magnetic system which, according to the company, is a snap to use.FotoFlot uses digital printing equipment designed for professional photofinishers to print the images on photo paper, then mounts/fuses them to a 1/8" thick acrylic, laser trimmed to the sizes chosen. It uses a silver halide photo processing, and it prints on matte finish pap...

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Posted in: Innovative Stuff

Apple New Sub Notebook?

There's something in the air...the blogosphere is abuzz with Apple rumors. The rumor buzz is usual a few weeks before the MacWorld Conference & Expo (January 14-18, 2008) in San Francisco, and this year the rumor-mongers expect that Steve Jobs will announce a new $1500 sub-notebook MacBook Pro, which will be 50% thinner than the present laptops, and will employ flash memory instead of a hard drive, but no optical drive (which will be separate).Depending on its configuration, this new sub notebook (if it indeed materializes) may well be ideal for traveling photographers. Light, small and providing all the necessary software would be the answer to many problems now facing us. I'm holding my breath on that o...

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Posted in: Hard Gear

Adobe Elements 6 For Mac

For those who don't need Adobe CS3 (or find it too expensive) for their Apple computers, the company has announced that Adobe Elements 6 is available for pre-order for an estimated street price of US$89.99. The software will later be available at retailers.Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for Macintosh will run on Leopard, (Mac OS X v 10.5), as well as previous versions of Mac OS X starting with 10.4.8.Adobe Elements 6Update: Here's an informative first look 'hands-on' of Photoshop Elements from NetGuido via Imaging Insid...

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Posted in: Soft Gear

Neeraj Mahajan: Gypsy Souls

Image © Neeraj Mahajan -All Rights ReservedNeeraj Mahajan is a commercial and documentary photographer living in Delhi. Despite having graduated in hotel management from Australia, he chose to make a career out of documentary photography, and a few years later branched into advertising photography as well. His father, a street photographer himself, was an early mentor, followed by Pradeep Das Gupta who provided him professional guidance.Neeraj has many documentary projects, either completed or work-in progress:"Sinners"is is a multi layered photo essay based on the concept of redemption and faith in the Hindu religion. "Rhythm Divine" is an essay of images of people, religious sects and holy places dissolving into each other, and "Gypsy Soul"is...

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Posted in: India,Photographers: Photojournalists

Digital Photo Pro: Shiho Fukada

Layout © Digital Photo Pro magazine-All Rights ReservedI'm really pleased, but not surprised, that Shiho Fukada, TTP's Photographer of The Year, is the subject of an article entitled "A Different Kind of Briefcase" published in Digital Photo Pro magazine (below for link). On the other hand, I was surprised to read Shiho's difficulty in selling her fascinating photo essay "Life In A Brothel"...a photographic project about the sex trade in Bangladesh, which can be seen on her website (below for link). According to the informative article: "Fukada describes the response from the American magazines to whom she has pitched the project: “Third-world brothels have been done to death. What else do you have?”What else does she have? Well, she's got...

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Posted in: Bangladesh,Photographers: Photojournalists

Benoît Marquet: Fishermen of Kashmir

Image © Benoît Marquet-All Rights ReservedBenoît Marquet is an independent photographer based in New Delhi, who specializes in news and documentary photographic assignments from South Asia.He has worked in Kashmir, and his website showcases a photo essay (Kashmiri Fisherman) on the fishermen who ply their trade on Dal Lake. The life of a Kashmiri fisherman is no different from other fishermen all over the world. Waking up before dawn to fish and returning home just after sunrise, the Kashmiri fishermen have a difficult time making ends meet. It's probably a dying profession, with his children working in other occupations.Srinagar is said to have been founded by the Buddhist Emperor Ashoka during the third century B.C. Dal Lake, the Jhelum River,...

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Posted in: India,Kashmir Photo Tours,Photographers: Travel

65th POYi

Image Copyright © Muhammed Muheisen/AP -All Rights ReservedThe 65th Pictures of the Year International competition is open, and invites entries to the world's oldest and one of the most prestigious photojournalism contest. The deadline for the entries is Friday, January 18.I found the above photograph by Muhammed Muheisen (The Associated Press) of Muslim pilgrims praying at Jabal Al Rahma ("the mountain of forgiveness") holy mountain, outside Mecca, to be one of the most powerful in the 64th POYi. It was awarded Third Place in the Feature category, and it's proof that non-Western photographers are rapidly and deservedly making their mark in the photojournalism world.65th P...

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Posted in: Contests,Photojournalism

Sandra Steele Kunz: Women of the World

Image Copyright © Sandra Steele Kunz-All Rights ReservedSandra ("Sandy") Steele Kunz is a photographer based in Central Oregon who has her camera lenses firmly trained on the world, but especially focused on India, Bhutan and Indochina. Her favorite photographic subjects are Buddhism and environmental portraits of women and children. Most of her photographs are spontaneous, and she generally avoids arranged photo shoots.Sandy was one the first photographer to join my inaugural photo expedition to India, Nepal and Bhutan in October 2000, and she has been on every single one since then. So I know first hand that her passion for visually documenting Buddhist culture is exemplary, and that her empathy for women and children is exceptional. I have...

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Posted in: Asia,Bhutan,India,Photographers: Travel

1 on 1: Gavin Gough

The Travel Photographer blog will occasionally post interviews with both travel and editorial working photographers. The first interview of 2008 is with Gavin Gough, a full-time freelance working photographer from Great Britain.TTP: When did you decide to become a photographer? Who or what influenced your decision? GG: I've entertained ambitions of being a photographer since leaving school but followed a more mainstream career until a sabbatical in 2003. That year off gave me the opportunity to change track and became the launching point for my new career. Realizing just how quickly time is passing is a great motivator and once I had made the decision I knew that the remainder of my working life would be devoted to photography. TTP: Do you...

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Posted in: Photo Interviews,Photographers: Travel

WPost: Praying for Benazir

The Washington Post has featured a short video by Travis Fox on the gatherings following Benazir Bhutto's assassination in December. Her assassination hasn't only caused enormous havoc on internal Pakistani politics, but it also created considerable resentment between the dominant Punjabis and the remaining tribal and ethnic minorities. Many Sindhis (like Benazir) believe that she wasn't assassinated because she opposed extremism and advocated democracy, but that she was killed because she was a Sindhi.According to the Washington Post: "Few believe the country is in imminent danger of fracturing again. But Bhutto's death has exacerbated ethnic tension in at least two ways: It has angered non-Punjabis because of her status as a member of a minority, and it has eliminated one of the few Pakistani...

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Posted in: Multimedia,Pakistan

TTP Recap of the Week

For your convenience, here's the past week's (December 31- January 6) most read posts on TTP:Update on BatteriesRevamped Photo-Expeditions WebsiteHeathrow's New Baggage Ru...

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Posted in: TTP Recap

News: Heathrow's New Baggage Rule

According to the BBC, most UK airports are preparing to let passengers take more than one piece of hand luggage on flights from Monday, to coincide with extra security checks.Heathrow, which is an absolute disgrace in terms of passenger service, is one of the airports where two hand luggage pieces will now be permitted. It seems that new scanners have now been installed, and this will facilitate security checks. The other restrictions regarding liquids etc are still in effect.For those of us who travel from New York to London and back, British Airways will allow two pieces of hand luggage per passenger, while Virgin Atlantic will allow one piece of cabin luggage per passengers in Economy and Premium Economy Class (plus laptop, handbag or similar);...

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Posted in: Events

Streets Eats In Bangkok

Image © Josef Polleross /New York Times-All Rights ReservedTo compensate for my irascible Sunday rant on Manhattan brunches, here's a slideshow from the New York Times on Street Eats in Bangkok. The photography is by Josef Polleross, and the accompanying article is written by by Joshua Kurlantzick who has experienced Bangkok street restaurants for a decade.He writes on what most frequent travelers to Thailand know well; the best food in Thailand is served by street vendors and at small neighborhood restaurants. What I didn't realize however, is that it's because of historical reasons that Bangkok has some of the best street food in the world. It has long attracted migrants from all over Asia, so its street cuisine, both from street carts and...

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Posted in: Photographers: Travel,Thailand

Sunday Rant V

Here's a non-photography related rant, and it's about Sunday brunch. Yes, brunch...the meal that is neither fish nor fowl...neither breakfast nor lunch and neither this nor that...the hideous meal that's supposed to combine breakfast and lunch. Living in an area of Manhattan that seemingly has more restaurants and cafes than people, I'm getting increasingly ticked off by this in-your-face scam which restaurants love to heave on its patrons every Sunday. Why do restaurants love brunches? Because it's a breakfast with the price tag of a decent lunch. You do the math: a couple of eggs, a bunch of left-over reheated spinach (if you order eggs Florentine), maybe a few dry rashers of bacon, and worst of all a glass of orange juice mixed with plonky...

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Posted in: Rants

One Shot: Vinayak Das

Image Copyright © Vinayak Das-All Rights ReservedVinayak Das was born in Calcutta, and according to his biography is completely self taught as a photographer. He specializes in documentary and people photography. He particularly enjoys honing his current skills in working with natural light and subjects of social and cultural interest. His biography also tells us that he is currently working on a project called 'Bangalore Markets'( A look at the traditional heritage market places in Bangalore). Yakshagana ( A look at Karnataka's traditional Folk Art Form ) and Reflections of Life are two of his new projects that will be ready in this year. He is a contributor to Visage, one of India's leading stock photography agencies. Vinayak has been involved...

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Posted in: India,Photographers: Travel